Removing Food Tags

[Kaed]

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5751

 

A semi-recent feature implemented a function that caused food items whose name was not standard to have an extra description that indicates what you recognize the food item as normally.  This somewhat took trust and creative liberty away from the player in addition to causing the unintended side effect of causing procedurally generated items like vegetables and ice cream cones from the cart to all have a tag informing you that you recognize them as 'fruit' or 'ice cream cone' but a tag on them indicates they are are a 'cabbage' or 'cherry ice cream cone'.

I made a PR removing this feature to fix both issues.

There has been some push back that this is a necessary feature in the kitchen, so I will present my defense on removing it here:

The onus of responsibility for clearly conveying what food item you have made through the ability to modify it's description and name should be on the player, not on the code. If you start naming all your hot dogs 'nazi cocks' which simply read 'smells like facism' when you look at them, then you are abusing the feature and that is an issue that needs to be handled by the staff team and an ahelp.

Used properly, this feature does not need a little tag telling you that, say, the chili dogs you put out on the counter are in fact hot dogs, when it is within your power to explain that it is a hot dog with chili on top via the mechanics now available.

Additionally, there are a number of food items in the game whose name is either exotic, memey, or otherise not helpful for describing what they are (without metagame) for the general public, like 'Bibimbap', 'Roffle Waffles', 'Soylent Green/Viridian' 'Spacy Liberty Duff' 'Spesslaw', and 'Borscht'. Being told you recognize this plate of 'Beef Stroganoff" as 'Spesslaw' does not particularly assist the player in comprehension of what they are eating more than a good description would.

The feature is not intended to be used to deceive or troll people, we don't need a feature to protect us from it when it's being used properly, that's why we have administrative oversight.

Edited December 12, 2018 by Kaed

[GreenBoi]

I'm confused, what exactly are you removing? The tags or the ability to set custom names and descriptions? If it's the latter, that sucks out all the fun out of Chef. It's nice being able to re-name your sandwich to "Lil' Miss Sloppy" with a description telling you how sloppily made it is and how it probably wouldn't taste good. I know, that if I were a Chef, I wouldn't want to have to put OOCly, some reagent that tastes bad just for people to get "This is a sloppy and bad sandwich", I'd want to deliver that just by naming it "Lil' Miss Sloppy" or "Bad Smelling Sandwich"

[Kaed]

No, I am removing specifically the bit that, after you rename your sandwich "Lil' Miss Sloppy" says

"You recognize this as  Sandwich, but a little piece of paper propped up on it indicates it's a Lil' Miss Sloppy."

Edited December 12, 2018 by Kaed

[GreenBoi]

Ah ok. I can get behind that, I guess

[Kaed]

In an attempt to compromise, I have returned the food tagging feature, but it now only indicates that the renamed is a personal recipe, rather than magically conveying knowledge of what the original item is called.

Also, I used to boolean variables to make produce and ice cream cones stop having the tag entirely.

[Gem]

old/stale thread.

locking and archiving.